Doreen (Larmer) Stewart Nursing Scholarship
January 21, 2022
When Doreen Stewart was ten years old, she was told to never, ever go near a delivering mother pig. But when she saw that their family’s sow had pushed the runt of her litter away to die, she took matters into her own hands.
“I leapt into the pen,” she recalls, “retrieved the little pig, and took it into the house. I put it in a box on the warm oven door. I had my Wetums doll bottle, so I fed the weak little pig some milk. This little pig survived…”
Her father, witnessing Doreen’s efforts and care, announced that she would be a nurse. He was a good judge of character.
Indeed, this caring nature did eventually lead to Doreen becoming a nurse – and to her recognizing the importance of supporting nurses and the work that they do.
It also led to her working with Trent University to create the Doreen (Larmer) Stewart Nursing Scholarship, a $100,000 scholarship that will aid Peterborough-area students with a “strong intent to study nursing as a career.”
While Doreen currently lives in Calgary, she has strong Peterborough connections. The Larmer family are long-time residents and active in the community. In fact, she hopes to return to Peterborough to present the first scholarship in person. It will be her way of helping caring local students attain their goals – the very thing her mother did with her.
While Doreen originally set her sights on medical school, school councillors in the 1960s were still very much a product of their times; and Doreen’s councillor nudged her towards becoming a nurse instead. Her mother, respectful of the importance of the profession, supported her career choice.
“My mother, who was the daughter of the local midwife, always wanted to be a nurse. But she lost her mother when she was just thirteen, and was left at home to care for six young brothers and sisters, so never had that opportunity to become a nurse. It was her influence and urging that helped push me.”
In fact, much of Doreen’s caring nature and introduction to medicine came under her mother’s guidance.
“We grew up with passion and adversity,” she remembers. “We four kids had chicken pox, measles, mumps, flu… often all together. Poor Mom, two sick kids to a bed. I remember the times well. The Rx for a bad chest cold: castor oil, aspirin, hot tea, and mustard plasters. Those plasters were warm and soothing. Mom made four at a time!”
Times have changed, and so has the science behind medical care, but the need for nurses remains essential – particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I don’t know how to express how deep my emotion is with nursing right now,” says Doreen, who, as a former emergency and intensive care nurse, understands the pressures today’s nurses face. “Nursing had always been well respected. We’ve gone through a lot of changes: nurses don’t wear the cap; and the nursing knowledge and the nursing compassion has been somewhat undervalued until we’ve had this tremendous crisis, and people saw how important nursing really was. No one else is at your bedside. When the crisis comes, it’s the nurse.”
The Doreen (Larmer) Nursing Scholarship will offer financial assistance to a qualified Canadian student with the intent to complete the study of nursing to Baccalaureate as a career nurse. Preference will be given to local Peterborough-area students with a rural or farming background facing financial difficulties in paying for their studies.
For more information on the award, or for more information about creating a scholarship at Trent University, please contact Donna Doherty, senior philanthropic manager, at donnadoherty@trentu.ca.